


Destiny, or something of the sorts.

by FrozenBrownie



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional and Physical hurt/comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Listen I hurt Jaskier to make them talk and kiss, M/M, Netflix-canon with shards of general canon sprinkled on top, Part-Elf Jaskier | Dandelion, Post-Canon Fix-It, vague historical details butchered to fit Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26379937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenBrownie/pseuds/FrozenBrownie
Summary: Who would ride past a sea side village in danger of starving because their shores are infested with sirens? Jaskier tries to help, alone, abandoned a year after Geralt finally shoved him out of his life on that dreadful mountain, and receives a lethal wound for his troubles. Good thing that rumours travel faster across the continent than the sun sets and rises again. Geralt is not ready to let Jaskier die, neither is Triss ready to let Geralt grieve for the rest of his unnaturally long life.Destiny won't be done with the white wolf and his bard in quite a long while yet.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 12
Kudos: 279





	Destiny, or something of the sorts.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello internet! After having watched the Witcher series on Netflix shortly after it aired, I became a bit obsessed with these two idiots in love. I know about half of The Witcher 3 and quite a bit of lore that I researched while writing this. I know that this is a trope which has been done about twothousand times befoe, but let's be honest, I never was able to keep my fingers off a nagging idea. There's eight more plotbunnies on my list for the Witcher fandom, so let's see what's yet to come for me in here.  
> This was beta read by one of the members on the lovely MCU Stucky 18+ fandom server. Thank you again!  
> Say hi to me on tumblr: [dreaming brownie](https://dreamingbrownie.tumblr.com/)

Jaskier had never expected to die at the seaside. To die young, certainly, with the life he had chosen, constantly on the road, uprooted. With time, he had grown from almost still a teenager into a young man, into a true adult, even if he did not like admitting it. On the wrong side of 40 years of age he slowly had relaxed into this careful hope: protected by a Witcher of all people he might have lived to see 60, at least. After that, everything was a bonus granted by the gods which seldom a peasant ever got. Of course, some unlucky souls lived to 80, to 90 even, but these were few and very far apart.   
Jaskier was 42, and this was how he would die: bleeding sluggishly from a large gash in his upper left leg which all too fast was turning blue, was moulding green, blood vessels standing out in his pale skin like seaweed. Very much entirely alone.   
  
Well. That was not entirely true, now was it? The kind elderly lady who had taken him in, elderly, as in: 15 years older than himself; she was treating his wound, his fever, his bouts of tired tears and exhausted misery. It took four days for acceptance to set in, and somehow, this was worse. Letting go of a life lived fully, but fucked up, botched, a patchwork of a job poorly done to preserve his own heart and dignity, felt like a shameful failure. One or two of his songs had risen to true popularity, but nothing that would survive the ages, and those were sung with their protagonist in mind, not with the songwriter. Alas, past that, nothing from his feather would be sung by generations to come, would be written down again and again, changed, edited to suit the spirit of the time better. He had finished none of his grand epics he had talked so often about in the planning stages. Work begun and abandoned in favour of… what exactly? Distraction in the form of a white-haired bastard who had stolen his heart without even realising it?  
Gods above, Jaskier had hated himself never as much as in his final days. Or hours. Who knew?  
  
All that was left for him now was boredom and agony, fitful sleep that pulled him gradually deeper every time he sunk beneath the surface. Figures. His death would be caused by the sea, because he had gotten reckless. The ocean was claiming him with gentle whispers of the constant wind, searing cries of sea gulls, the roaring, the aching, the crashing of the waves against the sand.   
That he would die near Blaviken was an irony worthy thrice over to be immortalised in song.   
  
This was his death-bed: A soft one, without lice or roaches, filled with straw, his head cushioned on a feather pillow long since gone flat. Above him a window brought light and air in from the sea, and with it the terrible cold. The year was tumbling into winter fast, fog bit into the glass and left its flowers as a warning. Jaskier smiled bitterly at them, the morning when they appeared, and pressed his fingertips to the inside of the window.   
“Greetings, stranger,” he murmured tiredly before he let his hand fall back onto the duvet once more. “Don’t you worry, I won’t be long now. You take my pain, and I will come willingly.”   
It would not have surprised him to see a figure entirely in black with a scythe enter the small, cluttered room that moment, but instead only old Diana came in carrying a bowl of something slimy. She tossed more wood into the hearth one-handedly, stoking the embers gently without a word. Then she turned around, her eyes were very soft.  
“I brought you breakfast. Can you sit up?”  
The day she needed to feed him would be his last. That was not today.   
“Sure,” Jaskier replied light-heartedly as he bit his teeth to keep a scream in and heaved himself into something resembling an upright position. Dear heavens, he was so tired. So very tired, and the waves were lulling him to sleep still.   
  
Diana re-dressed his wound while he ate, resolutely not peeking down, as he knew exactly what the ugly thing looked like: a long, red line swelled with inflammation, dead tissue all around, the siren’s magic was making him rot from the inside. If only amputation would have saved him, but neither was there a doctor near enough to do the task safely, nor the wound far enough down his leg to attempt it at all. The upper cut of the gash had graced his left hip bone, and so he was doomed. The horrid smell told every person with half a brain that he would die in a matter of days, still Diana remained silent as she worked. Neither did she treat him like he was about to walk away from this, nor did she pity him out right. Sure she did, deep down, as her heart was warm and soft, but in their strange little routine, nothing of that showed.   
  
That particular morning she glanced at him when he was finished with his porridge. The break in their habit had Jaskier’s heart stuttering in its chest, or maybe the blood loss made it desperate.   
“Is there anything an old woman can do for you in your final hours, son?” Her question startled him, despite that he should have known; any decent person asked a dying man with some time on his hands for a last wish. Jaskier thought of a beautiful panorama view up from the mountainside, of white hair and cat eyes and the smell of dried grass, leather and horses. Destiny, he had believed. Once. Not a year ago, and he had known, somehow, that this would be it, on his own he no longer was as safe as with 18. Semi-famous bard who pissed off every bigoted idiot up and down the kingdoms, and all that.   
  
His throat constricted.   
“I… I don’t want to be alone, please. Nobody should have to fade alone. And if there is any way I might close my eyes to the endless horizon over the sea, that would be wonderful.” Diana put her gnarled, gentle hand on his uninjured leg then, a sad little smile on her wrinkled face.   
“I will ask Thorbjorn over at the smithy to carry you outside once it is time. Everybody in the village is talking about you, dear boy, you will be remembered.” She cast her eyes down, her smile deeper now. “Even if not in the way you planned, maybe. Most of the sirens were chased off by a group of our strongest men yesterday, with nothing but pitchforks and fire. Turns out nobody needs swords against the creatures of the sea.” There was pride in her voice, a hard steel core not to be trifled with. Jaskier adored her. With more time and a clearer mind he might have written down her life story to spin into a tale for the common people.   
“They are… rather useless, yes,” he sighed, cursing his own inability to say no in the face of anguish in a simple fisher village. It had seemed so easy; row out into the shore, do what Geralt had taught him: fire and fury, scatter them, get the fuck back to the beach and don’t run into drowners in the process.   
Alright, he had overestimated himself badly. Not that he had cared for injury particularly, considering the state his heart was in, and now he was reaping the results. Stupid little bard, good for absolutely nothing.   
Well. He had been over this. Numerous times.   
  
“There is a particular Witcher,” he added quietly, gazing out the window into the cloudy grey sky. Diana listened without interrupting. “The one I sang about for twenty years straight. Geralt of Rivia, the white wolf, he has many names. We were… friends, I suppose.” Breathing got more difficult with each passing day, and Jaskier was so exhausted. It took effort to turn his head towards his nurse. “Long, white hair, built like a dream, broad shoulders, possesses the strength of a hundred men. Kind Diana,” pleaded he, “if you ever encounter him, or if he comes through this lovely little village by chance, seeing as he will avoid Blaviken at all costs for the rest of eternity, tell him from me that he is forgiven, please.”   
  
“Forgiven,” she echoed like a question, so Jaskier nodded.   
“Entirely, from the bottom of my useless heart, for what it’s worth now. My darling Witcher is a stubborn mule at the best of days and a mess of self-hatred at the worst times. But he is gentle, he cares, he interferes in injustice, protects everything sentient as a principle if he can help it. We parted on shouts and injuries, which was his fault entirely, I admit, but we were all stretched thin and stressed that day.” Adjusting his position did not elevate the pain in his leg, hell, his entire left side one bit, but it did give him time to ponder how much to give away. The last thing he wanted was Diana coming out with pans and a knife once Geralt showed up. If he ever did.   
  
“That is no excuse for treating a friend poorly.”  
“No, it is not,” he conceded with his eyes closed in agony. Just thinking about that godawful mountain made his insides ache in a way that had nothing to do with the cut in his leg. “But I am not known for holding a grudge, though admittedly, were I granted the time to have some words with him, I would, loudly. But I am not, so all I wish for is his peace and safety, a long life free of so much pain. My death without a reunion, might that have played out however it would, will damn him to a century or two of bitterness, anger at himself and thus recklessness once he hears of my passing. He does not need that, not now, not ever.” Diana, bless her soul, shook her head slightly as the elderly tended to do at the youngsters, sadness in her eyes. Her grey hair was tussled, it fell down to her shoulders in locks impossible to tame. Once they must have had shine and glory to them.   
“No Witcher deserves that much love, if you ask me, but you make him a better man than most. I suppose the truth will be somewhere in between. Don’t you think I will embrace him if he ever shows up to my house.”   
  
Jaskier could have sobbed, a week ago he might have thrown a fit at such a statement, protective even in the middle of heartbreak. No matter now.   
“I do not ask that of you, good woman. I simply wish for him to know that he is forgiven and I will miss him very much, wherever I might go. That is all.”   
Her curt nod took a weight off his shoulders that left him empty. Geralt would carry the news into Oxenfurt, and there Jaskier would be mourned, celebrations thrown in his honour before everyone would get over their short grief. A name of a bard left to the wind, a few songs scattered across the continent before those, too, would be forgotten. Though as long as Geralt of Rivia still walked the earth, at least there was one man who would, hopefully, remember him at all.   
  
Heavily the exhaustion settled into his bones, wave after wave he listened to as they rolled onto the cold beach. A strong breeze made the shutters rattle. The warmth of the fire reached him no longer, every single part of him was freezing, kissed by winter’s greeting. Jaskier was so very tired and no longer had the energy to resist.   
“Go to sleep, master bard,” Diana said quietly before she stood and gazed at him for a little while. What she thought he would have liked to know, her opinion of this dying man in his 40s who appeared half his age by some lucky streak. He did not stay awake long enough to hear her leave.   
  
What he also did not witness: That Diana told her son at the market, who told his wife at home, who told her cousin over dinner, who told her friends about to leave for the fishers’ market of Blaviken. In Blaviken, that sad oily spot on the map, Stregobor was being visited by Triss Merigold on behalf of head sorceress Tissaia to threaten him with castration over last week’s council meeting. Triss Merigold heard the whispers, saw the solemn expressions and sighed. No way she could ignore this, she found, so she activated her medallion which would lead her straight to Geralt.   
And so, before sunrise half of Blaviken bay knew about the dying master bard in his bed, who had tried to save a remote sea-side village without a name from a flock of sirens.   
  
Jaskier was, of course, also not there to witness the dawning horror on Geralt’s face in some dirty tavern at the feet of the blue mountains. How his handsomely cut features crumbled with anguish, then hardened in hot rage, his entire body one taught bow string ready to snap. The hasty way he simply grabbed his meagre belongings, strung the swords on his back, slammed a single silver coin on the table and abandoned his bread and stew showed more than words would have about his feelings. Roach whinnied before she reared back in outrage as the portal opened, glowing sea-foam. Geralt pulled her along nonetheless.  
  
What Diana had said to her son was:  
“Oh, the poor man, I feel for him so. Can you believe he still defended that butcher when he is dying from doing the Witcher’s job?”  
What Triss had heard from Stregobor went along the lines of:  
“The annoying bard’s leg is rotting off and he’ll sure be dead by daylight.”  
Geralt had not anticipated to be greeted by a pan swung at his head instead of deathly silence.   
  
Seagulls fluttered into the biting air in discontempt for being bothered at their fishy breakfast, a bang rang over the shoreline as the pan collided with Geralt’s left hand. Roach danced on the spot nervously, her ears were laid back flat, though she was kept secure at the reins in Triss’ hands. Salt-hardened grass broke underneath her hooves, but Geralt shot her an exasperated glare that calmed her down enough to behave.   
“Where is he?”  
“Thinking of you as he drifts off either today or tomorrow,” replied the full-bodied ball of protective fury that was the eldest of the tiny village without a name. Noticing how Triss’ eyes grew a little bigger, she nodded, satisfied. “You take care of the idiot, sorceress. Witcher, either you cure him or you stay with him until he finally dies of the fever, the blood loss, or, oh I don’t know, his broken heart perhaps.”  
  
Geralt snarled, a wild thing that tore at his instincts to go, right the fuck now, instead of being laid into by a mortal woman only years away from her own death. He tossed the pan into the mud.   
“Where. Is. He?!”  
“Geralt,” halted Triss without touching him, though her hand hovered mid-air in front of his arm. Her focus was on the old woman. “Thank you for taking care of Jaskier, madame. We would like to see and try to save his life, of course, if we are not too late.” Diana deflated a little then, her eyes going softer.   
“My house is the last one on the right with the chicken shed facing the beach. You would be surprised how scared drowners are of them.”  
“That’s horse shit,” Geralt huffed, taking off into a jog before he could think too much on how the hell that particular myth had developed. Time was running through his fingers like sand, every pounding step reminded him with rattling teeth that this was his fault, his fault, his fault alone. That his words on the mountain after that shitshow of a hunt had been a big mistake was not new to him anymore, though he never had expected, even in his deepest fears, to lose Jaskier so brutally, so fast, for good.   
  
Jaskier truly was fading indeed. When Geralt broke through the door, eyes wide, hair loosened, a languid heart beating faster, how slow he was to stir told much about how far gone he already was. One foot already on the other side, oh, Geralt hated Blaviken and its misty area of influence, hated it with such passion, it should have had the good grace to go up in flames in an instant.   
“Jaskier,” he breathed to promptly fall to his knees at the bedside. The bed was clean, though Jaskier was not, far from it. He gave off the stench of death waiting. “No, no no no, look at me, Jaskier, I’m here, I came – what the fuck have you done now, bard?” There was no heat behind his frustrated words, even though he could have screamed. Jaskier slowly turned onto his right side, though every motion provoked a wince, so Geralt stopped him with firm hands. The bard was icy. Dread ran down his spine, unable to focus on a watery blue stare, a smile like a bird’s trill in the morning, a half-bitten off name on dry lips.   
  
“Sirens,” whispered Jaskier, caressing the white stubbled cheek of his Witcher with a shaky hand. His Witcher, all along, and here they were. “Too much of ‘em. Thought I could save the good people from starving. No fishing in these infested waters.”  
A growl broke free from Geralt who only had to lift the duvet to find the wound. The sheer size of the bandage made him weep inside. These kinds of stories he had heard before, though he made a rule out of not traveling to the coast too often. Especially not after… Well.  
“So you jumped into a fight without mutagens, without my instincts, anything at all, and thought you could win against multiple sirens at once?”  
“You would have done the same,” Jaskier pointed out with a melancholic little smile, which was simply not fair. Down fell his hand, back onto the bed, his eyes stayed closed too long in a single blink. Slowly, slowly, Geralt could smell the blood trickling into once white fabric.   
  
A sob choked him, stuck in his tight throat it got rid of the anger and gave way to gut-wrenching fear.   
“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Jaskier. I never should have- … fuck, where is Triss, dammit? TRISS?!”  
“Here, stop drawing attention to yourself, Geralt.” Her figure in the open doorway was the blessing they needed. Not even Geralt would be able to save Jaskier after so much blood loss and with infection set in long ago. “So, I heard the famous bard is in urgent need of proper medical care. I am Triss Merigold, Geralt and I go way back. Kind of.”  
“Us too,” Jaskier answered with a small smile, not moving a muscle. At that Triss knelt too, frowning as she started casting whatever diagnostic spells she needed. Her hands glowed green like poison ivy.   
“Let’s see what I can do, shall we?”   
  
Maybe it was the proximity of familiar faces that allowed Jaskier to show his pain, though it was obvious how very hard he tried to keep it all in. Tiny noises of discomfort made Geralt shush him softly, desperate to touch him and yet dead afraid to make it worse. Witcher’s hands were not made for comfort. Still Jaskier let one of his hands rest against his broad chest, the slightest pressure a reminder that he was yet alive, and Geralt could not help but cover the slender thing against his armour.   
“When I said we should go to the coast…”  
“Not like this,” he filled in the thought, a pale little laugh passed between them, a tender fleeting thing. Humans died all the time, he knew, but he was not ready to lose Jaskier. Not by a far stretch, and most likely he would not be ready in another twenty years for it too.   
  
“Jaskier, I hurt you badly. I took out my anger on you. Never should have done that.” The bard’s features closed off, though he dared not look away. His hand curled into a lose fist atop Geralt’s heart, which, really, said enough.   
“No, you shouldn’t have. My passing still isn’t your fault, dear heart, no matter what you are cooking up in that big brain of yours.”  
“Nobody is dying today,” Geralt growled, hating the way he did not believe himself even for a second. There were tears burning at the edges of his vision which he resolutely refused to let fall.   
  
Just then Triss retreated a step or two to rummage around in her big leather bag which she had put on the floor upon entering the small, crammed room. Out she pulled a flask the colour of blood.   
“Quite right, I hope. Now, this is for blood replenishing purposes as you have lost too much blood for my taste, additionally there are two scales stuck in your wound which have to come out as soon as possible. That means a minor surgery, and seeing as Geralt will probably not talk to me for half a century if I cause you any more pain, which is not in my intentions anyway, I have to knock you out. But as far gone as you are…”  
“I won’t wake from that good sleep, will I?” Her gaze was pained while Geralt held his breath.   
“I’m afraid not, master bard. The good news is: You are not entirely human, which gives us a little more time. The bad news: we are going to Novigrad.”  
  
One could have heard a pin drop.  
“He.” Geralt swallowed. “What?!” Jaskier, on the other hand, blinked like a stunned deer to then cough out a dry laugh that must have hurt his throat. Somehow he managed to sink onto his back, staring at the white ceiling.   
“Ohhh. Oh, that explains a lot. My apologies, I never knew… Ha. What am I then, Miss Merigold?” How hard to understand he was, slurring the words together, behaving like he was drunk and hadn’t slept in three nights, scared Geralt more than the shock pulsing through his system. Triss seemed to agree, as she busied herself tipping Jaskier’s head back for the potion to go down his throat. He coughed terribly, hacking his lungs out while she lifted the duvet without grimacing.   
“You have elven blood, as so many people do, may they know it or not. But I do think we should care about your life first and discuss the details later, as you are still on short time, I’m afraid.”  
“Yes, well,” Jaskier sighed, pushing his hand against Geralt’s chest as if to make him get up already, “Do your worst on me, and don’t blame yourself if I drift off nonetheless.”  
“Shut it, Jaskier,” Geralt huffed as he carefully pushed one arm underneath his back, one under the knees. “For once in your life, shut up and let others do the work. Hold on if you can.”  
  
For as much as Jaskier was still talking even on his deathbed, as soon as he was on Geralt’s arms, the only sounds falling from his lips were broken noises of pain. Had they but the time to go slow, Geralt would have acknowledged the knifes they were driving into his heart: a pierce, a twist, a stab with each of these tiny whimpers. Jaskier’s skin was cold and clammy, his rabbit heart stuttered as if it was still deciding whether to simply stop. He was lax as a dead fish even in half awareness; his eyebrows were drawn together in agony, his gaze unfocussed like Geralt was spinning him round and round. The portal made the pale shades of the sea wash over his face.   
“Please stay awake, Master bard,” called Triss from the top of a stair case which surely would have been Geralt’s undoing, had Jaskier not been so light. There was a table in the middle of a room which smelt of herbs and sunflower seeds, walls lined with heavily filled shelves of tomes ancient, dried ingredients, linen bandages and the like. Triss, a healer mage, was the exact opposite of Yennefer, and never had he been more glad to know her.  
  
She put a pillow underneath Jaskier’s head, which was only a nice gesture considering he was resting on hard wood. Her smile turned a little strained as she hurried about the room, cast off her travelling overcoat, but stopped him when Geralt started pulling at the numerous buckles and straps of his armour too.   
“No time?”   
“Sorry to say so, yes. Hold him down, please, and no matter what, that leg stays flat and still on the table.” There was steel in her voice as well as a considerable degree of concern, either for him or her patient, or for both of them, perhaps. As Geralt felt his stomach turn at the thought of having to hurt Jaskier – again – he clamped down viciously on these soft instincts. No place or space for sentimentality now.   
  
“Jaskier,” he murmured, “Jaskier, look at me.” His eyes opened slowly as in a dream, all colour had drained from his youthful face. Jaskier was white as the walls. Gently, because Geralt could have crushed that bone in a heartbeat, he put both his hands on the swollen leg. “This is going to hurt like a bitch, so you’re allowed to scream. I’ve got you.” Gone was Jaskier’s soothing smile from before, gone the easy thing lighting up his ocean eyes.   
“I don’t want to accidently hit you. Strap me down, Geralt, please.” It flickered shortly into existence, then, like a candleflame. “Ha. Never thought I would voice that particular wish out loud…” Geralt only huffed and lightened the pressure left and right of the awful slash wound when Triss unwrapped it carefully.   
“Not going to happen, bard. Ask me again when you’re not drunk off siren’s poison and blood loss.” What it did to his protective, possessive instincts to have the foolish bard utter such things in painful honesty, he rigorously ignored for his own sanity’s sake.   
  
The scab on the wound broke as soon as Triss started working her magic on it, flooding the small room with the stench of decay underneath herbs and sea salt and things unidentifiable even to Geralt’s trained senses. Something inside that deathly gash began to move like a hatching egg, hesitantly, as if it was not quite time to come out yet: this was what planted the seed of Jaskier’s last wish. To die on the beach, to lie down in damp sand instead of that soft bed, so that the sirens could come and drag him into the water before he was entirely gone, would have been an unusual urge on the threshold in any sane man. Geralt had not heard Jaskier utter that wish out loud, but sirens were no strangers to him. Had he known how badly the dying bard really wanted to get off this table and stumble into salty doom, he would have relented and tied Jaskier down after all.   
  
Of course all frantic thoughts of escaping the agony vanished as his screams turned into breathless whimpers and sobs. Tears burned a path over his cheeks to drip into his matted hair. Much as his mind was cotton-fogged by pain and exhaustion, Jaskier locked gazes with Geralt the second before the sales came out of the wound like being stabbed in slow motion. Without Geralt’s iron grip he would have arched off the table as he screamed to the gods for mercy. Then he slumped, eyes slid shut, all tension gone from his body. Blood trickled down ghostly skin that Triss fought relentlessly to knit back together in circling, glowing motions. Magic and duty where needle and thread would long have been pointless. Hands bloody, Geralt bowed over unconscious Jaskier, weeping.   
  
Whether it was purely Triss Merigold’s tight-lipped work or a healthy dose of divine intervention that determined that destiny was not done yet with him, none of them could or would say when Jaskier woke up again hours later. As the first sense to return to the ones pulling away from deep coma always was hearing, clinking ceramics registered to him before all else. The rhythmic squash of a pestle in a mortar kept him from slipping back underneath the surface like a life line. Tiny dried leaves crumbled into powder, blossoms ruptured and morphed into a paste that gave off a heavenly smell. Leather creaked, linen washed soft rustled over hairy skin. Instinctively Jaskier turned his heavy head towards the quiet noises of numbing work. They stopped.   
“There you are,” rejoiced a woman’s melodic voice, “Open your eyes for me if you can, please. How do you feel?” Inhale, exhale, his chest expanded without obstruction. The room was mercifully cast in twilight, only in immediate proximity of his feather bed candles shone warmly. There the woman sat with a cloth and the mortar with pestle on her lap. Her dress was modest.   
  
“Sweet Melitele,” Jaskier sighed and stretched. If this was the aftermath, he would like to stay. “My fair lady, is this it? Am I released from mortal pains?”  
“Not yet, your lordship,” she replied, her eyes crinkled as she smiled. Her pale hands first put away her work before she reached for him to help him up, somehow it never even occurred to him to resist even in the face of confusion and fatigue. Sitting up hurt, it pulled at all the places that inevitably become sore after almost a week of bedrest, although he at least no longer had to bite back groans at the tiniest movements.   
“Oh. I, ah… Who told you about that old toss of a title? I admit no-one has called me thus… in a long time.” The woman by his side had a name, he was sure, if only it would come back to him. Some inkling told him he knew it, knew her, but not quite. Perhaps he had dreamed of her. Her eyebrows spoke of amusement even though her smile was kind, her fingers never idle while she lifted the duvet off his leg to look at something dull and throbbing.   
  
“I can imagine. Your wound looks much better, elven blood is more receptive to all appliance of magic than humans’. Do you remember anything of the bygone day?”  
“Not much,” he admitted, tired only from speaking, but hungry too, and that was new this wretched week. He paused then, silently reeling from the heart-wrenching memory of Geralt by his deathbed. “You saved my life.”  
“And your heart too, I reckon.” Without comment Jaskier tucked away the pin prick of longing against his bosom where he was tender from hating and hoping.   
“Ah, we may see about that, fair lady; I rather fear the man of my desire has it quite bad for a sister of yours. Thank you, Madame. … Merigold?” Her beautiful eyes widened a little, hands stilling in her ministrations on the dressings of his wound.   
“I’m surprised you remember anything of this morning. But you didn’t answer my question, which makes me think you are quite in a lot more pain than you care to admit even half lucid.”  
  
“Guilty as charged,” Jaskier sighed and melted into the mattress as soon as she let him. His focus settled on the door far away across the warmed room, almost entirely shrouded in darkness. “Is he still…”   
“Restless as a stag and about twice as bull-headed. I sent him to fetch me some water from the well. If he hasn’t picked up a contract on the way he should be back soon.” There was a fond sort of affection in her voice that told him about the nature of Triss Merigold’s acquaintance with Geralt of Rivia, but her words lacked any misdirected longing. In the midst of her thoughtful expression rested a settled sort of decisiveness that made Jaskier squirm. “Normally I keep my nose out of other people’s business, though saving your life would have been entirely futile if you just throw yourself into the next nest of troubles soon to silence your heart. So I will say this once, and I allow no questions. Yennefer abandoned Geralt on that mountain as he did you, and while he would jump to her rescue as he hastened to yours, he would never sit by her bedside for hours and hours. His spot right here he only gave up to me when I all but threatened to portal him into Ard Skellige to work off some steam on their endless supply of drowners.”   
  
She got up afterwards, her hands folded, a bit like she was praying for these two men not to be such idiots after their reunion. Jaskier vowed not to annoy her so ever again.   
“Thank you, sincerely. I mean it.”  
“I only did what I do best, Master Jaskier. Take heed that your title of Lettenhove remains unknown while you age in curious beauty unreachable to mere mortals, if you want my advice.”   
He heard what she was truly saying loud and clear: Jaskier would not wither anytime soon if no blade, no poison and no plague got to him. In his urge to bow to her he was glad she did not curtsy, merely turned around and swept out of the room.   
  
Being alone gave him the chance to think about the past days and his miraculous survival. How did one go on with one’s life after already having accepted death about to end all sufferings? Almost more importantly: What was he to make of his elven side, how much of it was there to him, and what would Geralt think about him now? Sure he spared those elves that very first day of their friendship, agreed with their grief and related to their alienated feeling of otherness, outcasts, potential dangers to human society. But to have travelled with someone who was neither; not elf, not man… It made Jaskier’s head hurt to think about, planted a tightness in his chest and a pounding pace to his heart that only worsened when the Witcher in question entered the room quiet as a wolf. He was a wild thing frightened, a predator softened at his rough edges around his loved ones. Triss was family, as was Yennefer, as had Jaskier once been. From the outsider perspective of a not-quite-elf it was easier to understand now, much as it stung.   
  
“You know I love your silent brooding, but I can’t see you properly over there and until a few hours ago I thought I would never lay eyes on your handsome features again. Will you deny me a good look at you before you leave for your path once more?” To say that Geralt froze would have been overstated, but he stilled, just for a second, before he snorted and did as begged.   
“Almost died, still waxing poetic. Never should’ve doubted you’re a poet at heart.” The way he all but dropped on the stool Triss abandoned earlier spoke volumes about the state he was in. Unkempt hair past shoulder length, hunched in shoulders and the smell of winter sweat told the same story. “Also, you look like shit and you need a bath. Didn’t that old woman wipe you down at least once to get off the salt water?”  
  
“Why, Geralt,” Jaskier choked on his own pulse with a shaky grin, “I never knew you string more than three words together in a sentence these days. Thank you, I’m honoured.”  
“Oh, shut up,” Geralt growled, but there wasn’t much heat behind the bite. Hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, hands still, head hanging, he appeared like a beaten dog, snarling, waiting for the next blow. “What in fuck’s name were you thinking anyway? Did you honestly think-“  
“Yes,” Jaskier interrupted decidedly. “Yes, I really believed I could save these villagers. Turns out they did it themselves, spurred on by my sacrifice; they chased that flock of sirens away with fire and pitchforks.” His tone softened then. “I never hoped to get myself killed, if that is what you’re afraid of.” Of course Geralt flinched, but his nod had a relieved air to it.  
“Good.” He straightened, the sheer size of his shoulders at their widest could have carried the world. Jaskier barely had any time to wonder what Geralt was bracing against before he pulled the rug out underneath him. “Had you plans for the winter before you got…”  
“Sliced up like a bird on a cutting board?”  
Brows drawn, the Witcher gestured vaguely towards the area of injury.   
“Before you decided to play the hero. Where were you headed? Oxenfurt?”  
“Obviously. Nowhere better to turn heartbreak and destiny into song than good old Oxenfurt.”   
  
If he was being cruel, may the goddess forgive him, Jaskier couldn’t help it. Sarcasm had become one of his most prominent weapons to protect what was left of his heart in shards. The expression that dawned on Geralt showed him plain that they both remembered that conversation after their very first adventure very well. And the punch too.   
“Heartbreak and…”  
“Yes, Geralt, don’t be daft, it doesn’t suit you. No mortal graced by even a shred of self-respect would trail after you like a lost puppy for _twenty years_ without being utterly, terribly head over heels in love with you. Every fool saw it given that they paid a minute of attention to us, every second barmaid I tried to distract myself with made shrewd comments about me in your shadow before I silenced them out of your earshot.”  
  
Geralt blinked, stunned.   
“I. Never. I thought. Those were stupid jokes aimed at your masculinity!”  
“Probably, yes,” Jaskier agreed, “Doesn’t change a thing.” He winced as knife-sharp pain shot through his upper leg when he tried to push himself upright further. What he didn’t see coming was the way in which Geralt was there to steady him in a heartbeat, strong arms wrapped around his back and his knees to lift him into a more comfortable position. His Witcher always ran hot, more so in winter when Jaskier himself was wilting and freezing like a flower in the snow. They were so close, all of a sudden, contact points searing. Geralt stared at him shocked, baffled, sceptical.   
“All your flings, the pretty village daughters, noble ladies, princesses and their very much male servants…”  
“Were means to an end, beauties all in their own who deserved better than me.”  
“No-one deserves you, Jaskier,” he replied with such heartfelt truthfulness, quiet, in a rough voice that caught on the sharp edges of his fangs that Jaskier simply had to avert his eyes. What a right mess the two of them were… He was burning from the inside, melting, ice and sea water dripping from his heart to let him live again.   
  
“It is not me who saves the life of hundreds day in, day out from certain death and unimaginable suffering. You devoted your life to humanity at large, while I seek their attention and applause or else I would vanish in the masses. What good am I to them? A bard to warm their souls and beds for a night, gone before sunrise. Fleeting.”  
“They love you,” Geralt responded passionately, it was almost a growl, underlined by a little shake meant to wake Jaskier from a dream, or some such foolery. It almost sounded like a pained confession. Jaskier, on the other hand, deflated.   
  
“Now look what my need for validation got me,” he rasped through a tight throat, his head hanging low as he gripped his leg through the blanket. It hurt. Badly. Tears burned in his nose, before they could fall to alarm Geralt he went on, bitter and pitifully desperate. “The master bard saves a whole village from winged, fish-tailed naked sirens who feast on sailors for a living. Ha, what an epic tale that would have made…”  
“Many good men die in better planned attempts to fight them off. You’re no-“  
“Exactly!” he reared up, eyes wet, hands shaking where he held onto Geralt’s steel-like arm. “For half my life you told me, time and again, to stay out of trouble, not to get in the way or better even let you the fuck alone. My skills lie in playing five different instruments, singing and writing, not the dance with swords. I never listened, seeing as you snarl at every kindness offered as if the entire world was looking to poison you. Perhaps I loved you too much to grant you a solitary life on the road. Before I did. Listen. And I left you, stayed out of your path…”  
  
When he ran out of air because his lungs were busy hick-upping tears and snot, Jaskier let his head fall against Geralt’s shoulder. First he feared to be pushed away but was pleasantly surprised when he received a wonderful embrace instead. Geralt practically pulled him into his lap, mindfully, of course, almost hyper-aware of the injured leg. His voice was a rumbling tumble of stones inside the broad planes of his chest.  
“I never truly wanted you to leave. If you knew about half the shit I threw myself into after that wretched fucking day you would have my hide.”  
“Probably rightfully so!” Jaskier glared, terrified what new scars and half-healed wounds he would find on his Witcher, given that he was ever granted the gift of his trust again. “But then, look at me… You were right to be angry at first. Wading into the waves to fight off an entire flock of sirens was reckless and doomed from the start, but I could not in good conscious ride off cheerfully.” The lungful of air he sucked in sounded and felt wet. “There was a chance, right there, to be remembered. And to save these good people from slaughter as well as starvation. I won’t pretend I did it entirely selflessly, it is not my nature, not like yours. Were I not part elf, or had your blessed friend not found me…”  
  
“But you are,” Geralt said as he tucked Jaskier against the slope of his neck, “and we did.” He huffed. “By the way, I stay on the path because there is literally nothing else to do for me in this world, and even I need money to live, much as it sucks. Got nothing to do with selflessness.”  
“Bullshit,” Jaskier muttered into the dark linen shirt. He was dead tired, his eyes sore from crying and whatever Madame Merigold had given him for the pain was slowly wearing off. It was easier to give into exhausted darkness safely held by the man he had wanted to be close to for half his life.   
  
Already aware that he was only gearing up for more heartbreak later, he still could not help but lean into the large hand that caressed his hair. With his eyes closed whispered words flowed forth like a river. Inevitable.   
“I loved you so much I clung, you pushed, I clung harder, you threw me off. Geralt, please believe me when I say I am sorry that I never took the time to read in between your attempts to get rid of me. You were scared, I suppose, which is half the reason why I forgave you a few months down the line already.”  
“And the other half lies in here?” Geralt guessed at the core of the matter, placing one of his sword-roughened hands on top of Jaskier’s heart. Separated only by a thin linen shirt there was no chance at all that he could not feel the way it beat against his fingers.   
  
Fresh tears sprang from Jaskier’s shut eyes.   
“Please,” he begged, “Don’t make this harder for me than it already is.” But instead of pulling away, Geralt embraced him closer, hugged him tight and let him feel the vibrations of tension exhaled. Jaskier was breaking down all over again, the pain fresh, even worse than on his long hike back down the mountainside. At least they would part on a clean slate, he thought helplessly before he felt the wolf’s breath in his hair.   
“I’m not letting you go again. If you are already mine, songbird, I would be a right idiot not to claim and keep you around again.”  
“What… How…?”  
“I thought I was protecting you and me both when I shouted at you. Blamed you for a lot of shit you had no hand in. Turns out I was dumb, stupid and a coward on top. You get into enough trouble on your own, with or without me.”  
“That one time…!”   
  
Utterly useless to try and defend himself from that one. Geralt was right, for once. And so he looked Jaskier in the eye with a stare that would accept no bullshit.  
“Yes, I heard about some distant cousin of yours trying to drag your arse back to Lettenhove and the ruckus you caused on your flight. You belong into the academy of Oxenfurt, they would have told your noble relatives to fuck right off and won. Then the sirens happened.”  
“I already had nothing to lose,” Jaskier relented, nodding in understanding. “So you believed my stunt to be a thinly veiled attempt to throw my life away. To take my heart to the sea and fling it out of sight. Well,” and finally he smiled a pale little thing that softened Geralt’s white-bearded features, “Terribly sorry to disappoint, but I am a tad more complicated than that.”  
“Of course you are.”   
  
Who moved first none of them would be able to tell later on. They met in a kiss that was twenty-two years coming, a tender question which turned into a passionate declaration within a few quick heartbeats. Once claimed, Geralt drew him in entirely, covered the hand that Jaskier had fisted into his shirt and cradled his head completely ignoring the matted state of Jaskier’s hair. They kissed for what felt like ages. An eon passed, and on the other side the world was a different one than before. He could have lost himself for an eternity in Geralt’s catlike eyes, the dilated pupils were a sure fire sign on their own that he was not getting off his rather comfortable lap anytime soon. The other clue was the impressive bulge in his hose.   
“As soon as I am healed,” Jaskier promised in between nips and bites and growls, “I am taking you somewhere nice, with velvet bedcurtains and silken sheets, and then I will do my level best to climb you like a tree.”  
“Gods, yes,” Geralt rasped against his lips, both his hands full of the bard’s arse. It did funny things to his pulse, he felt light-headed, giddy and emotionally drained all at once. The thing was: he could not get it up now if he tried. Too much blood lost, in too much pain.   
  
So he had to retreat eventually. He collapsed back into the sheets gradually, slowly guided down by Geralt who dragged the duvet back over him and even tucked it in at the sides. This house had some serious magical warming, must have, or else it would have been not much above freezing for how dark and snowy cold it was outside. Their hands were still entangled when Geralt settled back onto the hard stool which did not, in fact, look like it would bear his weight for much longer.   
“How the tides turn,” Jaskier mumbled drowsily, warm, comfortable and calm in a way that had nothing to do with impending death. His Witcher watched him thoughtfully.   
“What are you afraid of? I can smell just a hint of it on you, don’t hide it. You don’t have to. With me.”  
“Not of you, dear heart.” He let his gaze wander to the far away ceiling just for a moment to try to find the right words. It was difficult, for once, because he had not had a lot of time to think about this yet himself. “If I go back to my life as a flying bard… By your side, of course, but back to how things used to be. Sooner or later I will get both of us into serious danger. I am part elf, love, think about how the populus’ opinion about their favourite bard will change in a decade or two when I still look like this. Thirty on the outside, sixty in truth?”  
The grip Geralt had on his fingers hardened then, his pupils thinned to slits.   
“Let them try to go through me. See how that works out for them.”  
“I don’t want to be cumbersome to you, and don’t you deny it, at some point I am going to draw more attention than you do already. And not the good kind, unfortunately. Without you I would be screwed alright, but even by your side things will become impossible to uphold as we were used to a year ago.”  
  
Something in his little speech must have gotten through to Geralt’s lovely head, because he caressed and turned Jaskier’s hands in his own, obviously deep in thought. The silence was a comfortable one, neither did it stretch nor press down on them as it used to, once. Maybe they had needed the break away from each other to see what they could become, who they could be to one another if they only pulled their heads out their asses and put aside their egos for a day or twenty. The thought felt calming. That this was meant to be and neither of their fault entirely. Destiny, or something of the sorts.  
  
“If you want to learn… to fight. To hold your own at least against some brainless things like drowners and lower vampires, the like. If you would like not to make me worry so much when I can’t be with you all the time. Then I could take you to Kaer Morhen.”  
“Oh,” Jaskier breathed, not able to utter much else in his delighted shock. If he was being honest, the prospect of being surrounded by other Witchers simultaneously made his story-hungry soul ache with joy and terrified him at once.   
  
Geralt went on hastily like he had to get the words out before they got stuck behind his teeth.   
“We would have to leave within the next few days before the mountain pass freezes over, and before you even suggest walking on that leg, I am getting you a horse tomorrow in town. Vesemir wants to meet you for a decade by now. Eskel is a thick-headed idiot and Lambert a reckless airhead, but you’ll love them both if I know you at all.” He fell quiet for a bit there. A tiny smile pulled at his pale lips. “They are my brothers. The last of our kind. Kaer Morhen is nothing special. Neither fancy nor gifted with luxuries, but. It’s…”  
“Home,” Jaskier finished for him, already falling for this far-away magic place that protected the last wolfs from this world. Outside of any kingdom or empire his relatives would never find him, and if they did, gods have mercy on their souls.   
Geralt nodded in agreement, his head was ducked as if he was embarrassed by the display of emotion.   
“Hmm.”  
  
“Geralt, I would be honoured to meet your family. Thank you for the invitation.” A smooth grin overtook him, comfortable in his skin once more when he nestled further into the cushions and drew Geralt’s focus fully knowing that he was doing it. “Quite surely your castle in the mountains is sturdy enough to withstand your full might once you fuck me against its ancient walls, don’t you think?”  
“ _Jaskier_ ,” he sighed too fondly to hide his affection from a blind man.   
  
They had a lot of work to do on themselves both of them; to take down insecurities and mistrust and to mend hurt where it had been inflicted long ago. The first thing they had to get used to: not to throw knifes at each other anymore, unintentionally or otherwise. To listen, compromise instead of pushing and pulling into both directions. A long life lay ahead of them, a century at least, two or three if they were lucky. Gods be kind, they deserved it.


End file.
